Presenter: Kyle Steele, McKay School of Education, Communication Disorders
Authors: Kyle Steele, Tyson Harmon, Brenna Nelson
Faculty Advisor: Tyson Harmon, McKay School of Education, Communication Disorders
Institution: Brigham Young University
Background Attentional focus and partner support are important in effective communication (Kemper et. al. 2005, 2009; Leopore et al., 1993). For people living with aphasia, an acquired language impairment, attentional demands compound already-existing language deficits (Hula & McNeil, 2008). Unsupportive communicative partners also negatively impact communication for people with aphasia (Harmon et al., 2019). The present study aimed to determine how communicative partner and dual task performance affect linguistic production for people with aphasia (PWA). Method Participants retold a short story in the following conditions: single-task with supportive partner (SP), dual-task with supportive partner (DT), and single-task with unsupportive partner (UP). Ten people with moderate aphasia, 11 with mild aphasia, and 12 neurotypical controls participated. Dependent variables included words per minute (WPM), lexical errors per word, grammatical errors per word, and macrolinguistic errors per utterance. Results Mixed effects ANOVAs showed main effects for Group across all dependent variables. Participants with moderate aphasia produced fewer WPM and more lexical, grammatical, and macrolinguistic errors than the other two groups (p < .01). People with mild aphasia produced fewer WPM and more lexical errors than the control group (p < .01). Main effects for condition were found for WPM, lexical errors, and macrolinguistic errors (p < .05). Participants produced fewer WPM and more macrolinguistic errors during DT compared with the other two conditions (p < .05). Participants also produced more lexical errors in the DT than the UP condition (p = .009). Participants produced fewer WPM in the UP than the SP condition (p = .03). Conclusion Participants with and without aphasia slowed down when talking in the face of cognitive and social demands. Cognitive demands also led to more micro- and macrolinguistic errors. Therapy should train strategies to help PWA cope with cognitive and social demands.